The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently announced a plan to clean up contamination at Liberty State Park and create more trails and perhaps even some active recreation. At first glance, the plan might seem like a great deal for the Jersey City community. But a closer look reveals that the DEP’s plan would still potentially leave contamination in the Park and not address years of broken promises.
The contaminated portion of Liberty State Park in question – which represents nearly 40% of the Park – is known as the “Interior.” It consists of land that stretches from the west of Freedom Way all the way to Liberty Science Center and down to two blocks north of the Bayview Avenue entrance to the Park. For much of the 20th century this land was polluted through chromium used as fill, which was then built over by the railroads that ran on the property.
When the Park was first created, it was proposed that this area be cleaned up and used for active recreation: things like “baseball, basketball, football, soccer, handball, and tennis facilities for Jersey City residents.” But in the 40 plus years that Liberty State Park has existed, that contamination has remained and none of this active recreation has been created. At no point has a full, comprehensive plan to clean all of it up ever been proposed. Instead, the land was allowed to remain polluted. Meanwhile, the minority communities that lived near this area were never included in the decision-making process about the Park.
In 1983, the DEP worked with a public advisory committee to create a Liberty State Park Action Program. The program proposed a scaled back clean-up of the property that would not allow for active recreation. The committee that helped create this plan had no representatives from Jersey City’s Wards F and A communities.
Then in 1998 a court ruling allowed the contaminated area to be covered with just one foot of clean soil and 
fenced off to keep the public out. This was the minimum standard of clean up possible and this fencing still exists today, visible as you drive along Freedom Way.
Twenty-two years later, the DEP is now proposing a plan that would not conduct a full clean-up of the Park. It would instead cap pollution, rather than digging it all up and removing it. This kind of clean-up allows for essentially the minimum environmental standard to be used, a tactic that has been done before at the Park.
The irony of the DEP’s plan is overwhelming. Just last month, the state legislature was touting a bill it passed that created some of the strongest environmental justice standards in the country.
It would prevent further pollution in largely minority neighborhoods or try to stop it all together. But the DEP’s Liberty State Park plan, as presented, would fall short of the very environmental justice standards recently created and leave contamination still sitting next to communities of color.
The DEP has said it will be seeking public input on restoration of the Park, but it sounds like they have already made up their minds on how the clean-up will be done and what will go there.
Moreover, their announced plan creates no structure or mechanism to ensure that the voice of Jersey City’s communities of color are not only heard, but actually listened to. This continues more than 40 years of ignoring the community.
NJ.com reported that the New Jersey Sierra Club stated that they will be advocating for a full clean-up of the Park, not just a capping of pollution. Jersey City Activist Bruce Alston told NJ.com that he questioned whether the plan would ever actually happen.
“They’ve (said) that for the past 43 years and they have not done anything,” said Alston. “This plan would have been completed if it wasn’t in an area populated by Black and brown
people.”
The Liberty State Park For All Coalition also questioned the sincerity of the plan, hoping that a “true dialogue recognizing residents, and not a predetermined plan, will be implemented to be inclusive and mindful of local needs.” The Coalition has released a video – which can be viewed here that focuses on Liberty State Park’s history of contamination and how the local community has been kept out of the decision-making process.
Dates for public hearings on DEP’s plan have not yet been announced. One thing is certain though: the details of the plan, as it currently stands, fall far short of the environmental justice standards established by the state just last month. Any DEP plan that leaves contamination next to communities of color will be viewed as unacceptable by many.
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NJ's Plan For LSP Falls Short Of Environmental Justice - TAPinto.net
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